Why Does Warhol Cause Such Wild Valuation Fantasies?

First it was the Farah Fawcett portrait that caused ridiculous speculation in the press that a Warhol would automatically be worth tens of millions of dollars. Now there’s another tall tale, too-eagerly repeated by the Telegraph that its owner imagines is worth $20m or more:

Andy Fields, from Tiverton, Devon, claims to have snapped up the 1930s sketch in Las Vegas, where it was hidden among a pile of artwork. The vendor, alleged to be a drug user, told him his aunt used to care for Warhol when he was a child. The picture, which is signed, is thought to have been created when the artist was just ten or eleven years old. The claim would make the drawing the earliest known example of his famous pop art style. A formal valuation of the work has estimated its worth at a £1.3m, but Mr Fields has claimed he has been told it could be worth ten times that.